


Debris of the Past

by Nokomis



Category: Captain America (2011), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-17
Updated: 2012-05-17
Packaged: 2017-11-05 13:05:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/406680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nokomis/pseuds/Nokomis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fury sends Steve to Stark Tower to learn about modern technology, but the past is what Steve focuses on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Debris of the Past

**Author's Note:**

> Written for mynuet on LJ.

The only reason Steve goes to Stark Tower is that the SHIELD agents assigned to his case keep muttering direly about how he’s not adjusting to modern society properly and that they’re _concerned,_ which Steve gathers doesn’t mean they’re concerned about whether or not he’s happy about his life here in the future but rather that they’re concerned that a valuable asset might be ‘compromised.’

Steve has experience with being a military experiment, and he’s seen war, and he knows what sort of actions organizations like SHIELD take when they’re worried about compromised weapons.

So he pretends that he at least understands the world he’s living in, that knowing everyone he cared for is dead is something he can just adjust to, and accepts Agent Fury’s suggestion that Tony Stark might be able to teach him some things about technology. 

Steve doubts this; his few interactions with Tony have taught him that they push each other’s buttons entirely too much to be of use to each other. The problem is that he can’t pretend like nothing has changed when he sees Tony. 

He can’t ignore the technology that pervades everything now, because Tony is one step away from being the sort of android that were beyond anyone’s wildest dreams in stories when Steve was a boy. The light of the machine keeping him alive constantly shines through his shirts, reminding Steve that things are possible in this era that were simply unimaginable to him before. Tony’s constantly using one of the tiny computers that people consider phones now, changing the world with a few taps of his fingers on a screen smaller than Steve’s old wallet, and most importantly… most personally…

Whenever Steve sees Tony, he can’t pretend like everyone he knows is just off in another town, another country, just away in some unknown place where Steve will get to see them again. Tony’s there, a man older than Steve himself, and he’s Howard’s son. Howard who is dead, along with everyone else (he can’t think of Peggy, hasn’t even managed to force himself to open the file with her name on it that the agents gave him when he asked about his old life) and Steve can’t do a damn thing about any of it.

All he can do is follow orders like the good soldier he is, and hope that eventually he remembers why he did all this in the first place.

Stark Tower is modern and austere and nothing at all like the grand buildings Steve could remember admiring from afar when he was a kid in Brooklyn. It’s all sharp edges and glass and none of the detailed artistry that Steve’s always admired about grand architecture. During the ride up the elevator Steve thinks of how simple it would be to draw this place, to lay out sharp lines and minimal shading, and it doesn’t make his drawing hand so much as twitch with the urge to pick up a pencil.

He is sent to the penthouse. Steve can’t imagine why Tony would want him in his sanctuary, and tries to brace himself in case there are pictures of Howard around. Steve hates seeing pictures of people he knew _before_ in old age. It just reminds him of all the things he’s lost.

He didn’t have to worry, he immediately sees when he arrives, greeted at the elevator by Pepper Potts, who was far more gracious than Tony could ever dream of being. Tony’s home is a lot of things, but sentimental is not one of them. Steve would be shocked if anything in the place is more than three years old.

“There’s the national hero,” Tony calls from behind the bar as Pepper leads Steve into the penthouse, then leaves with an apology about having work to do. “Want a drink, Cap? I could whip you up a Shirley Temple.”

Steve truly wishes that his metabolism would allow him get drunk. He thinks it might possibly make Tony Stark bearable. “No, thank you.”

“Suit yourself,” Tony says, though Steve knows that he’s read all of Steve’s files and knows exactly how little effect alcohol would have on him. He’s pretty sure Tony knows more about what makes Steve tick than Steve does. It doesn’t stop him from goading him at every turn, though. At times it’s almost like he’s been waiting a lifetime for a chance to make Steve uncomfortable, storing up jabs and barbs like a squirrel hoarding nuts.

“Agent Fury said that you were going to brief me on technology,” Steve says stiffly. He looks around for somewhere to sit, but none of the chairs nearby look comfortable enough to bother with. He wonders when cushions went out of style.

Tony harrumphs and waves a hand airily around. “Fury needs to get his panties out of a wad. You don’t need any more briefings. My guess is you’ve been briefed to death, and maybe that’s why you’re about as fun as a wet blanket. My father never said you were boring.”

Tony looks almost as surprised as Steve feels that he actually brought up Howard this quickly. “I’m just not… comfortable here,” Steve says carefully. He doesn’t know how much Tony reports back to SHIELD. Perhaps more importantly, he doesn’t know how much he could – or rather, should -- trust Tony Stark.

Tony gives him a measuring look. “I suppose you wouldn’t be. Come on.”

Steve follows Tony back into the elevator, and mutters, “I didn’t mean I wanted to leave,” as Tony hits one of the unmarked buttons on the panel.

Tony leans back on his heels and grins, and for a second Steve could almost think he was with Howard. “We’re going to my workshop. Maybe you’ll be more comfortable looking at some of the new tools of the trade. You’re on even footing with the rest of the world there, no one else knows how it all works either.”

Steve smiles despite himself. “I believe you there.”

The camaraderie between them lasts all of thirty seconds before Tony, as if he has as much control over his smart mouth as a teenager, comes out with, “But really, all those years on ice had to do _something_ to you. All your bits still work?”

Steve manages to ground out a, “Yes,” without punching Tony, which Steve considers to be proof that he possibly has superhuman restraint as well as stamina. 

Thankfully the elevator comes to a stop before Tony can come up with a more horrifying question to ask, and when they step out, Steve immediately forgets how annoying Tony can be. He stares in awe at the gadgets that fill the room, unsure what exactly any of it _does_ , but knowing only that it is utterly astonishing.

“I designed most of the tech that assists me,” Tony says casually, gesturing towards several machines that rise and droop in a way that could almost be considered a wave. “JARVIS helps run it, and they sometimes get a bit overzealous – yes, I’m talking to you, Mr. Way-Too- Happy-With-The-Fire-Extinguisher -- but they’re far superior to anything on the market.”

“That’s amazing,” Steve says, thinking of Howard Stark and his flying car expo. Steve has always thought of Howard as the most amazing inventor he has known, but he’s pretty sure that Tony could run intellectual circles around his father. He doesn’t dare say anything, though. Tony never directly asks him about Howard, and Steve isn’t sure that it’s his place to say anything.

“That’s just the tools I need to make the fun stuff,” Tony says, and starts showing Steve a bunch of things he’s working on. Steve only understands about one word in ten, and mostly only gets the vaguest notion of what the things actually _do_ \-- a lot of stuff about clean energy and nonlethal weaponry – but what’s most important is the way Tony lights up when he talks about the things he works on.

This is where he’s happy, Steve realizes, and wonders for the first time why Tony had allowed him down here in the first place.

“Aren’t you afraid I’m going to sell your secrets?” Steve asks the next time Tony pauses for air.

“Isn’t that against your scout’s honor?” Tony shoots back. “But no. It wouldn’t matter, you don’t understand how to make it and no one else is close to replicating the technology yet.”

Steve has seen some things in the SHIELD labs that makes him doubt that, but he keepshis mouth shut. 

“Thank you for allowing me down here,” he says instead. “I know you don’t let a lot of people see this stuff.”

Tony looks away. “There was something else I thought you’d want to see.”

Steve follows him out of the lab and down a corridor – they must be underground; he sees a garage filled with some breathtaking cars that he almost asks to stop and look at, but the set of Tony’s shoulders is something Steve had seen a thousand times before, but usually only on men about to go into battle – to another room that looks like storage.

Nothing about Tony’s life so far has hinted that he’s the sentimental sort, but this room piled high with odds and ends shows otherwise. Tony digs through the piles – there is no sense of organization at all, and it’s only at the sight of this disorder that Steve realizes how carefully organized and sorted everything else that he has seen tonight has been, even down to the prototypes. 

“Here it is,” Tony says, and without ceremony plunks a shield into Steve’s arms.

Steve stares down at it. The blue circle and white star are unmistakable. “Is this…”

“One of my father’s prototypes for your shield,” Tony finishes. “It’s just a steel alloy he tried to develop before realizing he needed something far more protective, but I thought you might enjoy seeing a rough draft of that giant dinner plate you consider armor.”

“I… I do, thanks,” Steve says, staring at the shield. It’s battered, as though it’s been somehow misused over the years, but overall it is in much better condition than something that had been in the Stark’s idea of a garage for seventy years had any right to be. “They told me… They said he kept looking.”

Tony stares at the shield. “He kept searching. Sank untold amounts of money into it, too. Oodles. Everyone thought he was mad and that you were long dead. He… talked about you a lot. Especially when I was little. About how important heroes are to the world and how you were possibly the greatest thing he accomplished.”

Steve doesn’t what to say. Telling Tony that _he_ was what Howard should have considered his greatest accomplishment is at the tip of his tongue, but somehow he thinks that isn’t quite what Tony needs to hear. “I’m sorry he didn’t live long enough to see you—“

“If the word ‘hero’ comes out of your goddamn patriotic mouth, I might be forced to hurl myself out the window,” Tony interrupts. His eyes are bright, and for a second Steve thinks he’s going to grab the shield away.

“We’re in the basement,” Steve points out. His grip on the shield is too tight, he loosens it before he bends the metal.

“Details, details,” Tony says, and turns to dig in the debris of his past again. “There’s probably some other things you’d like to see in here, too. If you’re done spouting the company line, that is.”

“I’m done,” Steve says, but he doesn’t think Tony is actually mad at him. It’s more like… he’s afraid to hear the words. Afraid of taking on the responsibility that came with certain titles.

Steve can understand that. Some things can’t be taken back, once you’re committed to them. He twists the shield in his hands, and wonders what his life would have looked like if Howard Stark had found him immediately.

For the first time, he isn’t sure it would have been better.


End file.
